N. Korea, U.N. Command end border talks amid tension over drill

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By Sam Kim
SEOUL, March 6 (Yonhap) -- North Korea and the U.S.-led United Nations Command
(UNC) in South Korea ended their high-level military border talks Friday,
officials said, as Pyongyang stepped up its warnings against an upcoming
U.S.-South Korea military drill.
The general-grade meeting, a follow-up to the Monday talks which lasted only half
an hour, came a day after North Korea protested the March 9-20 drill by
announcing it will not guarantee the security of South Korean civilian aircraft
flying over its eastern waters.
It also came as the North is apparently moving forward with preparations to
test-fire a ballistic missile capable of hitting Alaska. Pyongyang claims it is
working on a communications satellite.
The latest round of talks at the borderline truce village of Panmunjom "only
lasted 45 minutes," a South Korean defense ministry official said, speaking on
customary condition of anonymity. The official declined to discuss the agenda.
In Monday's talks with the UNC delegation led by U.S. Major Gen. Johnny Weida,
North Korea demanded that the U.S. and South Korea cancel the annual Key Resolve
and Foal Eagle exercise.
The exercise, which dates back to a combined drill launched in the 1970s, is
aimed at assessing the abilities of the allies to quickly reinforce frontline
forces and deter rear infiltration, according to their officials.
It is based on a joint war plan that guarantees the deployment of hundreds of
thousands of U.S. forces to the Korean Peninsula should war break out.
North Korea routinely contends the exercise is a war preparation designed to
topple its regime. On Thursday, Pyongyang cited the drill in threatening South
Korean aircraft using its airspace.
About 28,500 U.S. troops are regularly stationed in South Korea as a deterrent
against North Korea -- a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War that ended in a truce
rather than a peace treaty.
North Korea claimed over the weekend that the U.S. has violated the armistice by
making an increasing number of provocations along the inter-Korean border. The
U.S. says it has conducted routine monitoring activities.
The UNC has yet to disclose the names of the North Korean delegates to the
meeting, the sixteenth since the 1990s. The Monday meeting was the first in over
six years.
Relations between the Koreas have soured over the past year since South Korean
President Lee Myung-bak took office with a pledge to tie reconciliation to
progress in North Korea's denuclearization.
Pyongyang regularly blasts the conservative leader in Seoul, arguing he is
aligning with U.S. hardliners hoping to undermine its leadership.
samkim@yna.co.kr
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